THE STANLEY CUP PLAYOFFS; Devils Get A Big Shock To System: An Early Exit

Dumped from the playoffs by the eighth-seeded Ottawa Senators tonight, the Devils were full of questions, self-doubts, false assurances, embarrassment. Even before the scoreboard lights were turned off on their 3-1 defeat, the sharp questions were fired first at Jacques Lemaire, the coach. After five seasons in the job -- and three consecutive seasons of post-season underachievement -- is he considering resignation?

''I still have a decision to make,'' Lemaire said, adding that he will discuss the matter with Lou Lamoriello, the general manager. ''It's both Lou and myself. Give me a couple days and I'll give you an answer.''

And what about Doug Gilmour, the Devils' star center, who led them in goals this series with five but was shut out tonight? Will he find a new employer as a free agent?

''I have to sit down with my agent and decide what to do,'' Gilmour said. ''This is not what we expected. It hasn't even sunk in yet.''

Then there was Scott Stevens, the captain and veteran defenseman, who had a subpar series that included a slashing penalty in the final minutes tonight as his team tried to come back from a 2-1 deficit. Defiant even after the end, Stevens did not have many positive things to say about an Ottawa team that won 14 fewer games than the Devils in the regular season, but beat them by 4 games to 2 in the four-of-seven game first-round series.

''They're an average team that played great,'' Stevens said of the Senators. ''We're an above-average team that played poorly.''

The Devils have been above average in recent regular seasons, finishing on top of the Eastern Conference twice in succession. But they were upset last spring by the Rangers in the second round. The year before that, after winning the Stanley Cup in 1995, they missed the tournament in 1996 when the Senators eliminated them on the final day of the season. Now, the Devils must contend with this flop against a six-year-old team that last won a playoff round in 1927, when it won the Stanley Cup in its previous incarnation.

The Senators scored the only goal of the first period, on the power play, by Aleksei Yashin. The teams traded goals in the second, both by defensemen, Kevin Dean for the Devils and Janne Laukkanen for the Senators. In the third period, the Devils pressed, but Ottawa's Igor Kravchuk scored in the final minute after the Devils pulled goalie Martin Brodeur for an extra attacker.

''I believed we would win,'' Lemaire said. ''I told them: 'Get a goal and they'll tighten up. They'll think about that next game.' We never got that goal.''

And the Senators' next game will be in the second round, against Pittsburgh, Washington or Boston. The Devils will play in October, with a roster to be determined.

''I think, over all, they played better than we did,'' Lemaire said of the Senators. ''I still feel we're a better team. We do have to re-evaluate everything. We will talk about the reason why we did not win.''

One of them is that they scored only 12 goals in 6 games. They got none from Bobby Holik, who led the team with 29 in the regular season. He missed tonight's game with food poisoning, the Devils said, the result of some bad fish he ate Friday night in a downtown Ottawa restaurant.

Other Devils without goals in this series were Randy McKay, Steve Thomas and Scott Niedermayer. Normally a defenseman, Niedermayer played left wing tonight, in part because Holik's absence forced Lemaire to juggle his lineup. Dave Andreychuk played only once.

The Devils also played without Jason Arnott, who had surgery to repair nerve damage in his wrist that was caused by an accidental cut from a skate when he was on the bench in Game 5 at Continental Arena on Thursday night.

The Senators kept the Devils boxed up in their own end for long stretches tonight. Ottawa also had the best of the hitting, as was evident in one revealing moment involving McKay, the tough Devils right wing who scored 24 goals this season. When McKay tried to control the puck along the boards late in the second period, he was slammed into the wall by a clean check from Lance Pitlick.

Yashin gave Ottawa a 1-0 lead at 8 minutes 28 seconds of the first period on a power-play goal. He beat Brodeur after taking a pass from Daniel Alfredsson behind the goal line and gliding out from the left-wing corner after the Devils defensemen left too much space between them.

Dean tied the score for the Devils at even strength at 5:24 of the second period with a shot from near the blue line that might have changed direction as it headed toward goalie Damian Rhodes. Krzysztof Oliwa, the Devils rookie, had a good chance to give the Devils the lead midway through the period, but he was stopped after breaking in alone on Rhodes.

Laukkanen made the score 2-1 for Ottawa at even strength at 10:30 of the second period by taking a long, hard wrist shot from the inside edge at the top of the left-wing circle. Afterward, Brodeur argued with Referee Kerry Fraser, apparently contending that Ottawa forward Shawn McEachern had interfered with him by knocking his stick from his hands.

''Nothing to take away from these guys,'' Brodeur said of the Senators, ''but this is unacceptable.''

And what should the Devils do to change their post-season trend?

''Maybe not finish as high in the standings,'' Brodeur said. ''Maybe we'll get lucky. It's tough when you don't win. You try to find excuses. It bothers you a little bit.''